Zheng He, one of China’s greatest fleet admiral and diplomat of the early 1400s, was probably not an ambassador because he did not carry out the roles of an ambassador- stays in a country for a relatively long time and suggests and convinces the country’s government to do something that is good for the ambassador’s home country. Instead, Zheng He constantly voyaged to many places with a huge fleet. Thus, he was not a trade ambassador but an emissary who displayed the power of China.
Zheng He’s fleet included over 300 ships, each hundreds of feet long and over
150 feet wide with several decks
(Gronwald). Along with huge fleets and tens of thousands of sailors, Zheng He was successfully able to lead seven voyages, each of which led Zheng He’s navy further up to the African coast
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By taking large ships, maybe He was trying to intimidate other empires.
Zheng he could have tried to intimidate other empires to elevate China’s status and put other empires under them. By doing that, the empires that traded with China could have felt threatened, which would be good for the Chinese empire because they would become globally known as a strong empire and no one would dare to attack them. If we look at the aftermath of Zheng He’s trade voyages, many countries, especially the North and Southeast Asian countries, started paying tribute to China (Beck).
This means that if this was the purpose of his trade voyages, then Zheng He succeeded in his mission.
However, as mentioned previously, this took a lot of resources and in result, China turned to isolation in the year of 1433 (Beck).
Commerce is linked to the building of the Chinese empire because Zheng He, a Chinese
Muslim, went out to share gifts to show Chinese superiority. The Chinese also had the capability to build roads and wells for other countries. When other empires saw China’s wealth and power, more than 16 countries gave tribute to the Ming court (Beck). Chinese scholar-officials complained